cause they basically update on most of the non-personal stuff that's going on.. oh, and the non-pride-related or LGBT youth group related or any of that stuff... meh.
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yesterday:
Heya,
Things have been ok here in Galway, however, I've already gotten a ticket for not having a tax disc, and I've had my first flat tire. I also managed to lose my glasses into the river (don't ask) and have already ordered new ones from Specsavers. At least I'm getting 2 for the price of one in sepcsavers, so I'll have a spare pair now. It just meant I was wearing my sunglasses driving out to Athenry with Kevin to pick up a PA for the sunday night gig off Paul and Moira.
The house is ok, Eduardo loaned me his jack to change my tire this morning, I had a spare one in the boot, but now I've to get that flat tire fixed. Who should I go to? I've to go into town, so I might just go to that place opposite the omniplex. Needless to say, any money I made from the gig last night is already well gone! but the gig went well, and the bar manager was happy. So that's a good sign.
Rita said to pop into the Gardaí with the ticket and see what they say, as I only got my registration cert in the post this morning, and I got the ticket on friday when I had to park in town to pop into the bank.
Ben ended up having to cancel again, as he had to meet a client for work on tuesday morning, so he couldn't come over. Annika should be here tomorrow or the next day. I've been feeding the birds, and generally popping into the house every so often, but I'm gonna stay there now for a few days. I called in to visit Kevin and Caroline when Laura was visiting, so I got to see Laura while she was up.
Other than all that, everything's not too bad.
Eamon
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today:
I got my registration cert yesterday in the post, just as I was about to leave, so I went and sorted out my tax for the year in the motor tax office. The woman there also gave me a letter to present in city hall about the ticket I got for not having my tax disc up to date. Which ended up being fine - I chatted to the lady in the traffic office in city hall, and she could see that I only just bought the car and that I had been waiting for the registration to go through so I could tax it. I should be getting a letter in a few days to confirm that the ticket has been cancelled.
I picked up my new glasses too - so that's all sorted. I'm going to withdraw some of the money from my credit union savings (as small as they are) to try and cover that. After my afternoon in town yesterday I went and met up with Amanda for a coffee out in Barna, which is one of the benefits of having the car - I can actually meet up with people now who live further out of town.
I didn't drop the tire in anywhere to get fixed yet - Amanda recommended a place out in Liosbaun Ind Est, as she says it's cheaper than anywhere in town.
I got my voting card postal vote for the Seanad today too, and my phone network are giving me a free upgrade on my phone because I've been such a good customer and paid all my bills to them on time so far. So there's some little bits of good news too.
Eamon
Seems like such a regular little thing, but it's my new car, and it was the first time I drove myself to work and back ever. Colour me happy with myself, as this means I now have transport for gigs and the like.
Not that I'm gonna play all of these, but this is a starting list so I have an idea of what I know I can already play off by heart (as opposed to just sitting idly infront of the music and playing it..)
- Famous Blue Raincoat
- Even An Ugly Man
- Last Night I Nearly Died
- Tiny Dancer
- Freewheel
- Worms
- Face Of A Killer
- Fly Me To The Moon
- Autumn Leaves (Les Feuilles Mortes)
- Haircut
- Hotel Song
- Sunny Afternoon
- Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay
- Heartbreak Hotel
- Will You?
- Show Me Heaven
- Stay
- Those Were The Days My Friend
- Sweet Ones
- Chasing Cars
- Anything Goes
- Colorblind
- My Beloved Monster
- Lovefool
- Hope There's Someone
- Sk8r Boi
- Brown Eyed Girl
- Boys Of Melody
- Hit The Road Jack
- Feeling Good
- Sweet Ones
- Volcano
Tori Amos
- Leather
- Winter
- Happy Phantom
- Cool On Your Island
- Tear In Your Hand
- Father Lucifer
- Cornflake Girl
- Crucify
- Strange
- Running Up That Hill
- Under The Ivy
- Wuthering Heights
- All The Love
- Coffee Homeground
- My Guy
- Shoop Shoop Song
- The Score
- Son Of A Preacherman
- Big Spender
- Glory Box
- Hotel Song
- Fever
- Ain't No Sunshine
- Sweet Ones
- Get Happy
- Hallelujah I Love Him So
- Don't Know Why
- Jolene
- Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie (A Man After Midnight)
- Heartbreak Hotel
- Hound Dog
- Standing In The Way Of Control
- The Muppet Show
Still Learning, so not confident enough with yet (both sets)
- Savin' All My Love
- Blue Skies
- Brick
- At Seventeen
- Fallen
- Build Me Up Buttercup
- I Don't Like Mondays
- Into My Arms
- Everybody's Changing
- Love It When You Call
- Iris
- Don't Explain
- The Man I Love
- My Baby Just Cares For Me
- Never Be Lonely
- Fill My World
- You Are My Sister
- My Immortal
- You And I Both
- The Man I Love
- 9 Crimes
- Chicago
- I Wish You Were Here
- The House On My Back Door
- Orlando / Drag King Love Song
- Helen (Don't Make A Sound)
- Waitress
- Maria
- Caoineadh
- I Wanna Love
I'm probably forgetting some and adding in ones that I most likely won't play... hmmm. anyways, that's what I came up with brainstorming just now.
My housemate has a pet lizard that he feeds live crickets to. He's away this week, so his cousin who's staying with us at the moment, and my other housemate have the task of minding the lizard. They kinda messed up feeding him though as there are crickets loose in the room, and I found one in my room. Not the most ideal of occurances.
I've managed to land two gigs doing piano bar kinda nights in two different bars here in town. One's a straight bar that's trying to pull in a crowd on a monday night with some chilled out live music, and the other is one of the gay bars, who want a kinda jazz set on the sunday nights. So I'm trying to prepare a 3 or 4 hour setlist to be able to call on. The gay bar one is sunday week, and he'll see what he thinks about asking us back again, and the straight bar one is the start of July. Both are paid gigs though, and both are looking at running it as a weekly night for the rest of the summer, which would be great, as then I'd have enough cash coming in to tide myself over for the summer while my work is in a lull.
Anyways, I've been trying to pick songs that'll suit the different places. The straight bar gig is about 3 hours long. The gay bar one is only an hour and a half or so. I'm gonna have the girls singing a lot in the gay bar, and one doing an hour or so of the straight bar set, so I'm not constantly singing, and to give a bit of variety.
Anyways, I've had to learn a lot of covers for the gigs, which I've not really done much of in a while. It's good though, as I've been learning some more recent songs, as well as some jazz standards and other great older songs too. It's just a lot of work.
Which is beyond rather wonderful, as the visitor in question is Ben,
We used to hang out together when he got off work or when at the weekends. On sunday's in particular we would call around to a young married couple he was friends with who would offer us "aperitifs" at 11am, and proceed to get rather merry for the rest of the day. It's surprising how much you can drink before you get drunk when you're well practiced. Well, Ben might be a bad influence on my drinking, but he's someone I hold rather dear and he's definately one of the best looking guys I've ever been friends with. And he's someone I can just hang out with and chat with and feel completely at home.
Oh, there's more photos of this guy on my flickr.
But I just haven't been in the mood to be posting at all recently. Seems to happen whenever there's actual stuff happening in my life. However, I'm now living out in Salthill, and my front door looks down over a park which leads all
However. I was visiting Steve two weeks ago for a weekend, which was nice. Don't ask me what the story is there as I'm not going to be able to answer at all. Let's just leave it at "it's complicated".
I was supposed to go and visit again this weekend just past, but it ended up being cancelled on the day I was going to travel. Hmm, nevertheless. So I hung out with lesbians instead and then went to see some terrible drag things "performing" in one of the gay bars here. They were all absolutely terrible, but then again, I am quite a critic when it comes to any kind of performance.
I've been in and on-off mood recently, but that's what happens when I'm not busy. I'm a much happier person when I have a lot of things to do. I've been keeping myself busy with organising Pride here in Galway (Bród Ireland West) and volunteering to set up a LGBT youth group here in Galway also (LGBT Youth Galway) but it's not paid work, so my finances are feeling the pinch at the moment. I've a few other jobs coming up but not all that much right now.
I've been performing every week at a cabaret night in one of the bars in town, and playing with three of my friends who are great singers, and have been doing a kind of jazz trio meets 50s girl group thing which works rather well. One of them however, is leaving to move home to Australia shortly, so we need to recruit a third female vocalist for that act. We've a few gigs coming up in that format, so we need to get that sorted soon enough.
I've been playing music quite a lot still, and playing my own music more often in the new house. I just feel a bit more comfortable here in that regard than in most of the other places I've lived. But I still rather doing it when no-one else is listening, as in my head, it's all still work in progress and not for general consumption.
